21 November
Movie Review: Piece by Piece 
November 21, 2024 Movie Review: Piece by Piece
November 14, 2024 "Humor on the Margins: Cartoons in the Turkish Jewish Newspaper Þalom" by Rakel P. Meþulam
November 7, 2024 The "Ottoman and Turkish Ketubbot" Exhibition
November 4, 2024 TV Show Review: Nobody Wants This
November 1, 2024 The Irresistible Drunkenness of Reading Books
Is this snow a Jewish ruse?!!
What a title for a column, isn’t it? Are you surprised? For this week’s column, I thought I should make the job of certain anti-Semite media easier and use this title myself!Mois GABAY
Is this snow a Jewish ruse?!!
What a title for a column, isn’t it? Are you surprised?
For this week’s column, I thought I should make the job of certain anti-Semite media easier and use this title myself! Rest assured, in a country where some people say, “Olive tree is a Jewish tree, we cut them down wherever we see one!”, there will be a few people who would undoubtedly believe that the recent snow blizzard which paralyzed life in Istanbul, last weekend was a Jewish ruse if a couple of “certain” media wrote it.
We are getting tired of reading such things and being appalled every single day, yet they (some people) are not getting tired of identifying every single nuisance or inconvenience with Jews, relentlessly. In a country where journalism is so cheap, you can add certain terms like “Jew” or to make it even stronger “Zionist Jew, dark powers, interest lobby” to the content of the nonsense news article you are writing. Then what? A simple citizen, who has not met a single Jew in his life or seen one on the street, uses his computer’s keyboard or his smart phone to start spilling his hatred with vulgar anti-Semite comments and messages. Then, we start expressing ourselves through “hatred of Jews” and consciously or unconsciously believe that all evil comes from Jews.
In only last week, we have seen numerous anti-Semite posts on social media following the Reina Night Club massacre, the video Barbaros Sansal posted on social media and last Sunday’s terror attack in Jerusalem. Don’t these posts alone demonstrate how as a society we can turn into monster?
In a political environment where politicians claim “there is no direct threat against anyone’s lifestyle”, we have seen that many of our Muslim neighbors refrained from wishing each other happy new year, afraid of possible backlash. We have seen National Education officials sending memos to school administrations about refraining from new year celebrations at schools. We have also seen tens of news with similar context in various news outlets. What good did these do other than polarizing (separating) us more?
Unfortunately, in my beloved country, after every terror attack, we’ve been exposed to bizarre comments such as “What were they (the victims) doing there?” made shamelessly by some people as if they are supporting a team. We have even seen marginalization of pain. Is it possible that Turkish people have forgotten their history, their wealth, their view of life, the kind of people they once were? For some reason, we have even forgotten to love ourselves! For a long time now, we’ve been saying we are hopeless cases.… However, we have loyalty, we have faith, we have commitment, we have amity, we have it all! The origins of humanity lie on this land. So, let’s stop complaining and unite, at least from now on!
Related Newsss ss
1 November
The Irresistible Drunkenness of Reading Books
“Veni, vidi, legi! / I came, I saw, I read!"
7 March
Tracking Down Mario Levi
"My luggage has been checked. He smelled everything and rummaged around. In shirts, trousers, handkerchiefs. They were looking for lace and jewelry. Even for banned books. Idiots looking for you in your suitcase! You won´t discover anything here! The contraband traveling with me. I stuck it in my head. And there are a lot of books in my head! I assure you. My head is a chirping bird´s nest. From the confiscated books." Heinrich Heine / Germany. "A Winter´s Tale"
13 December
Kissinger´s Political Doctrine
“Life is suffering. Birth involves death. Transitoriness is the fate of existence. No civilization has yet been permanent, no longing completely fulfilled. This is necessity, the fatedness of history, the dilemma of mortality.” Henry Kissinger - From the preface of his doctorate thesis at Harvard University.
13 April
Do All Organisms Feel Pain?
Scientists have revealed that plants exposed to stress also react like humans and animals do. This is a very important discovery for understanding the universality of pain for all living things.
